


not in front of the audience

by forochel



Series: news jazz! [2]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Broadcasting, Curtain Fic, M/M, Oriental Raisin for Men's Stress, Personal Growth, Whipped Kang Younghyun | Young K
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: Wonpil paused in the middle of looking at an art deco lampshade and turned to him, lovely and half lit in amber light.What a place to do this, Younghyun thought dismally to himself,you fucking idiot.For reasons no longer mysterious, Younghyun's pulse quickened when Wonpil came close in between all these lamps, smiling that soft, warm thing that seemed a minor miracle every time."Because," Wonpil told him, "you always make me feel better in the end."---sequel to bysine'snot the nine o'clock news, in which we follow the lives of TV news reporter Younghyun and weather-anchor-turned-news-announcer Wonpil for a year immediately following the events ofnot the nine o'clock news.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Kim Wonpil
Series: news jazz! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106195
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	not in front of the audience

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER: this is a work of fiction based on fictional representations of real people. if you know or are a member of day6, please close this tab now.**
> 
> \--
> 
> I know I say this almost every time, but this truly was a fic that grew beyond all reckoning.

* * *

It began with Jae leaving his tablet unlocked on the coffee table.

Very pointedly, he had left it on Naver Budongsang, pre-filtered to officetels for the young professional.

Younghyun would like the record to show that it wasn't that he was happy with his current situation of living out of the corner of Jae's living room or sleeping on a spare yo, though it was doing miracles for his back. Of course he wanted a place of his own. It was just that there had been so many other things on his plate — dead dolphins, the school gambling ring, the announcer auditions — that it had just been ... deprioritised.

"Dude," Jae said when he came back from the bathroom, "you've been sleeping on my living room floor for like, months."

"It's been four weeks at most."

"In these four weeks, how have you managed to reactivate your gym membership and not find a flat."

There was a vast difference, Younghyun didn't point out, between making one (1) phone call and _acquiring a flat_.

" _Anyway_. You're suspended. You have _nothing_ to do for the NEXT MONTH." Jae slapped the morning's paper, flipped open to the real estate listings, down next to his tablet. The delicate tower of water crackers Jae'd built whilst watching the morning news collapsed. "GO FLAT HUNTING!!!"

\---

"I don't understand."

"What's that, Wonpilie?" Haeseul-noona paused in the middle of wrestling with his curls.

"Oh." Wonpil hadn't realised he had spoken aloud. It was just — Younghyun kept sending him these links to realtor postings on Naver with zero context or explanation . Well, all right, he usually concluded each set of links with a question mark, but what was it that he wanted to know? That was the question.

"Oh?"

Wonpil shook his head. "Nothing, I was just thinking out loud."

 _They're all very big_ , he sent back, for lack of anything else to say. Though he guessed Younghyun — even on a month's suspension — probably could afford it. _Are you going to view them_?

 _Maybe_ , Younghyun replied, and sent a photograph he must've just taken of a realtor's window postings. _Does this place look dodgy to you_. _It does say their listings come furnished._

Haeseul-noona spritzed something that smelt faintly of grapefruit onto his hair. Wonpil closed his eyes briefly while the mist settled.

"Who are you messaging so avidly, Wonpilie?" she asked teasingly, now mussing his vastly tamer curls — they'd been eased into looser waves that said _elegant sophistication_ rather than _chaos hobo_. He owed the stylists so much for making him look good on air. "I miss hearing your voice, you know."

"Sorry, noona." Wonpil met her eyes in the mirror. "I'm just helping a friend."

Ex-Intern Yuna, whom he had met at the mudflats not so long ago and had joined him in ogling a Younghyun who'd looked inexplicably dashing whilst whipped by winds and dressed in hip-high waders, gave him a piercing look. "A friend."

Ignoring her, Wonpil dropped his eyes back to his phone.

 _Hyung, I live in a rooftop hut that I rent from someone who might turn up in one of your reports one day_ , he typed. _Please_.

Then he had to put his phone away while Ex-Intern Yuna caked foundation onto his face and muttered about _oppa you should drink more water it's a pity to mar this face with blemishes you know have you seen a dermatologist_.

When he was finally released from hair and makeup, fifteen minutes before he was due to report to soundstage, he checked his phone again and had to bite down on the instinctive smile.

 _Sorry_ ㅠ_______ㅠ, Younghyun had sent twenty minutes after Wonpil's message. _I'm being an ass again, aren't I? It's just such a bother to get furniture on top of a place_.

Shrugging into his blazer, Wonpil thought about what to say. Then another thought occurred to him. Why _didn't_ Younghyun have furniture from his old place?

"Who?" asked Sungkyung-noona, who had come in to check on his suit even though she probably had more important things to do. All of Wardrobe were flusteringly invested in his success.

"Um." Wonpil really had to stop being so distracted by Younghyun he spoke his thoughts aloud. "Uh. Reporter ... Kang ...?"

There was a flash of glee across Ex-Intern Yuna's face, but Sungkyung-noona just calmly said, "Oh, _Brisket_ Kang. He sold off all his old furniture when he was transferred to the SEA bureau."

"I got his shitty IKEA corner table," said PD Seo, who as the youngest PD for the 7am news, had been sent to fetch Wonpil. He had also brought along Wonpil's script for review before the pre-broadcast huddle. "But hyung was very generous with his pricing, so whatever."

"Hasn't he heard of long-term storage?" asked Ex-Intern Yuna.

"Maybe," Wonpil heard Sungkyung-noona say carelessly as he left the room with PD Seo in his wake, "Brisket Kang just isn't a long-term kind of man."

\---

Younghyun hadn't realised he'd been looking at places on the bigger side until Wonpil had pointed it out. But well — they were within his budget, if on the upper end of his preferred range — and more space was just ... better, right? Just in case.

Three years older, richer, and no longer (hopefully) wandering through life in a desperate fugue state, Younghyun found himself with enough mental function to ask things like "It doesn't get chilly in the winter, does it?" and "Are the windows up to code?" and "Is that the carbon monoxide detector?"

"The good thing," Jae observed after Younghyun had got home from the first day of unsatisfactory flat viewings, "is that when you _start_ something you see it through to the end pretty single-mindedly." He paused. "Unless you decide to blow it up spectacularly for true love, of course."

Younghyun choked on the water cracker he'd just stolen from Jae's snack dish.

"Serves you right." Jae unfeelingly smeared another lick of lactose-free cream cheese on a water cracker. "Anyway, did you find anything you like?"

After narrowly avoiding death via bone-dry cracker, Younghyun said hoarsely, "No — they — all had something ... not quite right."

"Didn't know you were so picky. Didn't you have some kind of persistent mildew issue in your old place?"

"I was barely in there anyway."

"Right, your Night Room Kang days."

Younghyun shrugged. "Well, I'm older now. Can't slum it like that anymore."

In a manner most pointed, Jae looked at where Younghyun was sitting in a nest of blankets on the spare yo in the corner of his living room.

"I'm _working on it_."

It took a few days of _working on it_ — actual viewings that he'd set up in a mad marathon, as was the only way Younghyun really knew how to do things — for him to realise.

It was on the penultimate day, when Younghyun was being taken around a neighbourhood decently close to work by realtor number three. To be precise, he was standing in an officetel high up on the twenty-third floor, and contemplating how different these digs were to those in Bangkok. That, and whether or not the half-loft thing was practical, as cool as it looked.

"Mr Kang, do you want to reschedule so your wife can come along?" asked Realtor Kim patiently.

Startled, Younghyun looked up from his half-typed update to Wonpil. "I'm not married," he blurted out. "Uh. I mean, what?"

"Oh." She looked a little surprised; her eyes dropped to the Katalk screen visible on his phone before flicking back up to his face. "My apologies, I just assumed that you were ... double-checking with someone ... special."

Against his will, Younghyun felt himself go red. "Er, just getting a second opinion."

Blinking slowly, the realtor nodded. "Of course. To the next place, then?"

"Yes," Younghyun, relieved, said. "Please."

\---

Kang Younghyun, windswept much like he'd been the mudflat morning Wonpil had fallen asleep on his shoulder, was leaning against a planter and bobbing his head to an inaudible beat in his earphones. He was also carrying a large, fancy bag that said Onitsuka _Tiger_. For his baby cousin's birthday, probably.

"Hyung," said Wonpil, tugging on a cable just as Younghyun met his eyes, smiling the same way that had made Wonpil invite him to stay for ramyeon on that summer night three years and change ago. "Hyung, why didn't you just wait in the lobby?"

"Not allowed on the premises." Younghyun wound his earphones up and stuck them in a jacket pocket. "Didn't feel like getting escorted out."

"Surely they wouldn't have."

"I thought it best not to test my luck, all things considered."

Wonpil tilted his head curiously. "What are these things?"

"Oh!" When Younghyun laughed, his eyes crinkled into crescents, dimples popped, and his entire affect softened. It was as warming as the hot chocolate from the reporters' lounge. "Look at you and your follow-up questions, Announcer Kim."

" _Hyung_."

Younghyun's smile tightened a little, but all he did was turn to walk in the direction of the subway station. "I think PD Oh's still feeling vindictive about all the, uh..."

"Men's stress?" Wonpil said. It was known that PD Oh was single-mouthedly responsible for making a dent in the seemingly infinite supply of oriental berry drinks that plagued the SBS headquarters.

As Wonpil had been aiming for, Younghyun laughed. "Yeah, that. Anyway, how was announcing today?"

Wonpil shrugged. "Same as yesterday." But he couldn't repress the smile. There was something about sitting behind that desk and greeting the morning's viewers; something about carrying out the responsibility of moving the 7am programme along smoothly; something about finally being where he'd dreamt of and worked towards, after all these years.

"Mmhmm." Younghyun's arm slid about his shoulders; he was smiling fondly at Wonpil from close quarters when Wonpil turned instinctively to look back. "You look happy."

The thing was, Younghyun seemed to always do and say these things without thought. Give him an inch and he'd take a foot in a way that seemed so natural you wouldn't realise you'd let him in until it was too late. The worst — or best — part was that Younghyun didn't even seem to realise he was doing it either. It was the artless sincerity of his affection that was so charming.

Wonpil had been afraid — though he hadn't shown it — that there wouldn't be anything more to them than the snap and crackle of their banter. That there wouldn't be any product to the fizzling chemistry between them. That this initial effervescence would be ephemeral, all air and no substance.

But he hadn't counted upon the unconscious ease with which Younghyun managed to disarm him, or tease stories out of him, or — or like when Wonpil had said _I love football_ and Younghyun had looked momentarily surprised — a moment long enough to put Wonpil's back up — but then said, _Oh, you'll have to teach me how to watch it then_. _I'm getting cable TV, you know_.

"I am," Wonpil said at last, as they descended the steps into the station. "I am pretty happy right now, hyung."

"Good." Younghyun squeezed him lightly and steered him in the direction of a different line. "No, this way. I want to take you somewhere special."

\---

Head Reporter Kim entered the editing room with her usual aplomb, holding her phone as though it were radioactive.

"Why," she demanded, ignoring Editor Song's existence entirely, "is my yogilates group chat buzzing about you being a single father?"

Editor Song whipped around to look at him so fast, Younghyun had to duck her long ponytail.

"I ..." he trailed off, jaw working. "I have no idea?"

"I'm not old enough to be a grand-aunt, Younghyun-ah."

Editor Song whipped to look at her, then back at Younghyun, her widening eyes magnified by the retro chic coke-bottle glasses she wore.

"Head Reporter Kim," he said with no little emphasis, "I promise you I do not, will not, and am _not_ _forecasted_ to have any _children_."

"Well —"

Head Announcer Kim burst in through the doors. "Kang Younghyun! You —"

"— don't have any kids."

"Uh," said Editor Song, "can I go take a smoke break?"

"You'll get cancer," Head Reporter Kim told her reprovingly.

"Can I ..." Editor Song paused. "Can I just go take a break?"

"If you must," said Younghyun wearily.

She pat him on the shoulder as she left.

"Well?" demanded Head Announcer Kim. "Then explain to me why _my mother_ is asking me about you dating a single mother?"

Younghyun put his head down on the table. "I have no clue. I'm not even dating a _woman_."

There was a long silence, and then every single muscle in his body locked up as he jerked upright. His aunts were both looking at him extremely peculiarly; if he didn't know better, he'd even describe the one on Head Announcer Kim's face as _proud_.

"Well." Head Reporter Kim coughed, and started backing out of the open door. "I'll just" — she raised her voice — "tell _everyone_ these are _groundless rumours_ not _based on actual evidence_."

Head Announcer Kim rolled her eyes extravagantly, but turned on one terrifyingly spiked heel to leave as well. "You should probably ... do some counterintelligence too, Younghyun-ah," was her parting shot.

It was only when he got home later that night that he realised what Head Announcer Kim had meant. Wonpil was leaning against his front door, bags of takeaway in hand, eyes brimming with laughter.

"Apparently," Wonpil informed him, "I'm a single mother, and you're officially the darling of all the cafeteria staff for being such a kind, open-hearted man."

"I don't get it," sighed Younghyun, unlocking his door.

"No?" Wonpil followed him through into the kitchen and put his burdens down to lean up and kiss Younghyun hello. When Younghyun let him go, he said as he left for the main room, "You're so dense for someone so smart, hyung. Please warm up the soup, it's gone cold."

Bewildered, Younghyun did as he was told.

When Younghyun brought their reheated food back out, Wonpil was already wrapped against the September night chill in the cloud-blue fleece blanket with Pororo print that Younghyun had got on sale at E-Mart. He'd spent so long contemplating it, the sales ajumma had got tired of extolling its virtues and instead started interrogating him about his personal life.

"Oh." Younghyun put his bowl down. " _Oh_."

"Oh?" Wonpil repeated.

"The supermarket ajumma," he said. "When I bought the blankets. She recognised me from the Vietnam special. She liked our treatment of the ... the issue."

"Mmmm?" A smile ticked up one side of Wonpil's mouth, like he knew what'd really happened was the ajumma cooing _Aigoo, you were so kind to those poor tricked halmeonis, what a good boy you are_.

"She asked me if it was a present for my niece or nephew. So I just told her that I got a new place and needed warm things." Younghyun shook his head. "How the hell did it get from that to _me dating a single mother_?"

"All these Unanswered Questions. Let's put PD Bae on the case, he might assign Sungjin-hyung to go talk intensely to the ajummas of Seoul," said Wonpil drily. He was still smiling that mysteriously knowing smile as he started eating again. "In any case, _I_ very much like the blankets, hyung. Thank you."

\---

"I've seen that shirt before," said Sungkyung-noona suspiciously, as Wonpil unzipped himself from his corporate jacket.

They'd had a discussion earlier — Younghyun sleep-muzzed and propped up on one elbow in his bed — about whether it would be more suspicious for Wonpil to just rewear his t-shirt from the day before or one of Younghyun's shirts. In the end, Wonpil had just rolled his eyes , said _I don't care if people figure it out_ and tugged Younghyun's far cleaner shirt on — they'd spilt some literal tea on Wonpil's the night before.

Younghyun had rolled out of bed with an alarming thump, but then shuffled over to hug Wonpil, apparently overcome by Wonpil's unthinking declaration.

"Get off me, you caveman," Wonpil had said, fighting his way out of those octopus arms. "I have to get to work."

He'd left Younghyun on his sofa, in any case, still half-naked and wrapped in a blanket, staring blankly at a rerun of the previous day's Correspondent's Report and drinking coffee like a robot.

"It's just a shirt, noona," Wonpil replied, and escaped into the changing room.

"That shirt is too big for you," said Haeseul-noona when he was trapped in her chair, straightening his hair with a little more force than was strictly necessary. "It _billows_."

"It doesn't even hang the way something designed to be oversized does," Sungkyung-noona agreed. Apparently she'd heard about the potential breaking news, and come down herself to switch out suits just in case an appropriately somber one was required.

"It's fashionable," countered Wonpil, closing his eyes. The morning briefing had been intense and run longer than usual.

"Since when have you ever known about fashionable, Wonpil-ah?" Sungkyung-noona asked. "Or cared."

Wonpil opened his eyes to give her a pleading look. "It's _accidentally_ fashionable, then."

"You really should cut your hair soon, Wonpil-ah." Haeseul-noona had quickly moved onto tidying his bangs. "I could absolutely give you an apple hairstyle if I wanted to, as it is."

"Maybe on _suneung_ day," Wonpil joked.

"He'd start a trend," said Sungkyung-noona. "Basics today, Yuna-yah. No time, and if someone important dies he should look appropriate to the occasion."

"Wow," Ex-Intern Yuna muttered under her breath, before attacking Wonpil with a foundation brush.

After the broadcast, during which the important personage did die and Wonpil did get to break the news with appropriate solemnity, he ran into Younghyun in the lift. Younghyun had managed to transform into Reporter Kang again: 100% more awake and put together than he had been at home just two hours before. Next to him was Camerawoman Song, who had also won every single SBS Family Sports Day event that called for superior upper body strength in the last four years.

"More dead dolphins?" Wonpil asked semi-jokingly.

"No." The grim look on Younghyun's face, Wonpil thought, made him look particularly handsome. "Forest fire."

"Oh no!" All faintly lecherous thoughts fled Wonpil's mind and he clapped his hands to his mouth. "At this time of the year?"

Younghyun shrugged as the lift doors opened on the ground floor and the 7am news team started milling out. "Well, I'll have to find out why, won't I?"

"Stay safe," Wonpil told him softly, trying not to sound _too_ distressed, before exiting the lift as well.

"This shirt you're wearing," said his co-anchor, Kyungeun-noona, in a discreet undertone. They trailed behind the production team on the way over to the nearest Starbucks. "I knew it looked familiar. You're already sleeping over with Brisket Kang?"

Poor Younghyun-hyung, Wonpil thought, forever haunted by his pursuit of truth.

"It's warmer," said Wonpil. His rooftop apartment was freezing now at night, and Younghyun's underfloor heating made it very hard to refuse invitations to stay over. In fact, Wonpil could just lie on the floor and bask under the fleece blankets that idiot had subconsciously bought for him all day long. Not a long-term man, his _ass_.

"Oh, all right." Kyungeun-noona nudged him in the side with her elbow. "Keep your secrets while you still can."

\---

The days were getting shorter, this far into winter. Thusly dependent on artificial lighting, and with an increasingly permanent bruise on Younghyun's shin, this particular errand could no longer be put off.

At least this time Younghyun would not be alone, exasperating all and sundry whilst he consulted Wonpil via text. They had an overlapping day off — or, well, Wonpil had weekends off usually, so it was a matter of Younghyun not needing to go investigate something, follow up on a lead on the weekend, or get called into look at footage by an editor.

"You work so hard," Wonpil had murmured late one night, blanketed under Younghyun and his extra duvet. After a long time, they'd slept over at his instead.Younghyun had truly experienced how fucking freezing it was in the winter, and promptly started brainstorming ways to covertly move Wonpil into his place. "Are you still trying to prove yourself?"

"Mmm?" Younghyun raised himself up on a forearm and immediately regretted the inrush of chilly air. " _Fuck_ it's cold. Wait, prove myself?"

"Your special that you're working on now." Wonpil elaborated. "And then everything else that pops up."

"Just ... finding my way again." Younghyun laid himself back over Wonpil. "Being the best damn reporter I can be, because I'm still deep in PD Oh's bad books. Also, he thinks I'm going to jump ship to KBS. They have an anchor position opening up or something."

Wonpil giggled. "They're still traumatised from Jinyoungie."

"I still can't believe you're best friends with that _traitor_ ," Younghyun said half-mockingly, and got poked in the ribs for his dramatic pains.

Of course, now they were going to a secondhand store in Jongno-gu recommended by said traitor. Wonpil was buried in a camel-brown puffer jacket; his face was barely visible between his enormous scarf and the hat pulled firmly down around his ears. It was all Younghyun could do not to just wrap his arms around the fluffy bundle he made and squeeze.

"Don't, hyung," Wonpil warned as Younghyun took his hand and pulled him close. "There are people around."

"I can't help it if you're irresistible." But Younghyun tucked Wonpil under an arm instead.

Younghyun had managed to get Wonpil to stay over the night before, in the name of efficiency and keeping him warm. Somehow this had blown up into an argument about Wonpil's rooftop death trap, pneumonia, and how Wonpil'd got on just fine for _years_ before Younghyun had "decided to care".

"That's not," Younghyun had sputtered, "I —"

"Isn't it?" Wonpil had asked dangerously, and stalked off to cool down in the spare room. They'd had half an awkward conversation about it, Younghyun stammering his way through an archaeology of feeling that he hadn't quite worked out for himself yet. In the end, Wonpil had given him that soft, tender look and said, "Why _are_ you the way you are," before pulling him into bed.

The sacrifice that Younghyun had made for an apartment big enough to have a spare room for Wonpil to sulk in was awkward corners that made dim spots. One such dim spot was responsible for the bruise on his shin.

Still feeling a little bruised just like his shin, a little tender and uncertain, Younghyun found himself saying, "Wonpil-ah," as he examined a canvas lamp printed with little figures drinking tea under peach blossom trees.

"Yeah?"

"Why ... me? I'm well aware that I'm something of a mess in my personal life, so ... I mean ..." trailed off as he realised what was coming out of his mouth.

Wonpil paused in the middle of looking at an art deco lampshade and turned to him, lovely and half lit in amber light.

 _What a place to do this_ , Younghyun thought dismally to himself, _you fucking idiot_.

For reasons no longer mysterious, Younghyun's pulse quickened when Wonpil came close in between all these lamps, smiling that soft, warm thing that seemed a minor miracle every time.

"Because," Wonpil told him, "you always make me feel better in the end."

\---

It had become too obvious to hide even if nobody ever said anything. The evidence was just staring everyone right in the face, daring them to look away first.

"It's the way he looks at Wonpilie," said Head Stylist Lee.

Yuna sucked on the packet of oriental raisin she'd pilfered from the newsroom lounge while chasing after Announcer Ahn for a pre-variety-cameo fix-up. It wasn't that bad, but she didn't understand why Chief PD Oh was always drinking them. "The hearteyes," she said. "They're like, so intense. I didn't think they could get more intense than when we did that recruitment ad, but they totally have."

"What a nice way of putting it." Senior Stylist Woo rifled through a rack of blazers. "In my day we just called it eyefucking."

"Hyerim!" said Head Stylist Lee.

"To be fair, eonnie, it's very loving eyefucking."

Stylist Jang sighed whilst looking through a brief from one of the variety PDs. He looked like he was imminently going to develop a headache. "I mean, there's also how Wonpilie has stopped looking at Brisket Kang like he has no idea what to do with him."

"I CALLED IT!" Yuna shouted, fistpumping. She whipped out her phone to show everyone her sneaky candid of Then-Weather-Reporter-Now-News-Announcer Kim Wonpil, dozing off on one of Reporter Kang's admittedly excellent shoulders. It was blurry but unmistakeable. "SEE!"

Head Stylist Lee's lips curled. "Even back then?"

"No," said Stylist Jang, who tossed the brief over to Senior Stylist Woo. She flipped through it and rolled her eyes. "Probably not. Who knows?"

"But they haven't said anything yet." Senior Stylist Woo picked out a few bedazzled blazers and tossed them on the worktable. "Even though anyone who's been in the same room as them for more than five seconds could see those ... vibes."

" _Anyway_ ," said Head Stylist Lee, "we're all agreed that if Brisket Kang breaks our Wonpilie's heart, he's just going to be wardrobe malfunction central, yes?"

"Um, duh," said Stylist Woo, and Stylist Jang nodded.

"Sure," said Yuna, but privately thought this was extremely fucking unlikely.

\---

Wonpil had not actually had the redoubtable pleasure of making PD Oh's close acquaintance before, having been but a lowly weather announcer. But he knew that Younghyun, despite all his sardonic commentary, was considered one of PD Oh's proteges. He was thus suitably alarmed when PD Oh steamed up to his cubicle on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday morning.

"Kim Wonpil," said PD Oh, who did not have a packet of oriental raisin in his hand for once. He was holding onto a thick leather binder of notes; a blindingly teal sticky note on the front said ' **NO POKEMON GO DURING STRATEGY**!!!!!'. The elegant handwriting bespoke an education before calligraphy was cut from post-elementary curricula. "Come with me."

Freezing in the middle of standing to greet PD Oh, Wonpil instinctively clutched the Pororo cushion that leaned against his cubicle wall. "Go with ... do we ... I ..."

"Oh, stop stuttering," snapped PD Oh. "I know you're perfectly capable of maintaining your composure."

 _Yes_ , Wonpil thought silently, _but not when my boyfriend's work dad is glaring at me with a lot of men's stress and no oriental raisin to hand_.

They went into a meeting pod, where PD Oh retrieved a packet of oriental raisin from the storage cabinet in a corner and aggressively stuck the straw in.

Wonpil cautiously sat and folded his hands together atop the table.

Taking a deep draught, PD Oh also sat down and opened his binder.

"What you may or may not know, Kim Wonpil," said PD Oh, "is that we the newsroom have — because _SBS family and cross-departmental synergy_ — a tacit _obligation_ to loan our _very important reporters_ and _news announcers_ to the bloody variety side of the house every now and then."

"Ah." Wonpil's heart was also starting to slowly sink into the pit of his stomach.

"Some people take this more seriously than others" — Cho Jungsik sunbaenim serendipitously passed the window,looking drained — "and some just put up with it. I don't really care which way you fall."

Wonpil looked down at his hands, and then back up at PD Oh. "Me?"

"Please." PD Oh tapped a pen that had materialised out of nowhere against his notes. "The 5pm weather ratings spiked by 10% when you had that wardrobe mishap. Not to mention all the _internet_ buzz."

 _And yet_ , Wonpil thought but did not say, _you relegated me to the 7am news_.

"Don't look at me like that, some things have to be done."

"Yes, PD Oh."

The man sighed and sagged. "Look, basically PD Oh the Lesser" — meaning the variety PD behind those viral recruitment ads that Wonpil's noona had meticulously screenshot every second of Wonpil's flowering appearance in — "is rebooting Barefooted Friends. He wants to give it a boost."

"And _I'm_ the one for this?" Wonpil couldn't help the incredulity. "Sorry, PD Oh, it's not that I want to be uncooperative — but I'm not sure I'm the right person for this. Wouldn't Eun-sunbaenim be more appropriate? His face is very well-known."

"His face," said PD Oh with an eyetwitch that maybe indicated a lack of magnesium, "is not your face."

"Oh," said Wonpil.

PD Oh eyed him, and flipped to a yellow page that was as copiously and illegibly scribbled on as the others, before turning it around.

"Look, these are the numbers on the articles that went out about about you making news announcer." He tapped another thickly circled number. _Who the fuck?!_ was written next to it. "And _these_ are the ratings increase week on week for the 7am news. Do you know how many people are actually tuning into this while preparing for work now?"

"Um." Wonpil felt his ears go faintly pink. He couldn't help _why_ the viewers had started watching, but he hoped that they stayed for the actual news. "This is ... a lot of viewers."

"It is. Also" — sighed PD Oh sucked up a little more oriental raisin — "you must be aware that with Announcer Baek moving up to the 9pm anchor slot, and all the fucking swap-arounds in between, there is now a vacuum in the 12pm slot."

Wonpil tried and failed to slow the way his pulse sped up.

"Announcer Ahn has been subbing, but she's been bending everyone's ear about the workload of that on top of anchoring the afternoon news roundup."

"Right," said Wonpil slowly. "Are you basically saying that —"

"Look," PD Oh cut him off abruptly. "Between you and me, you'll get a free trip out to Samcheok to say a few lines, open the programme, possibly do a game segment. There might be sand, there might be that young upstart Oh, but it could be worse. And all so you can stop occupying the bloody night room." Snatching up his juice packet, PD Oh conclusively sucked it dry.

"I suppose," Wonpil said, still staring at the numbers on PD Oh's notepad, "I must, then."

\---

Younghyun watched the first episode of fucking Oh Sehun's _Barefooted Friends_ reboot at home with Wonpil a Pororo-blanket-swaddled lump next to him. The popularity of that fucking boomer chic recruitment ad had somehow boosted the young PD's star, and landed him with the task of rebooting a variety show.

"Is it over yet?" Wonpil asked from the terry-clothed depths.

Patting him on the back, Younghyun said, "Yes."

Wonpil tentatively emerged and shrieked at the sight of his own face on screen before retreating. His voice was sulky as he accused, "Hyung, you lied to me!"

"I'm not sure why this is so painful to you." Younghyun had given up on restraining the smile. "It's not like you don't monitor your own broadcasts."

"It's _different_. I'm standing right next to Lee Dong Wook!"

And hadn't _that_ been a coup for Oh fucking Sehun, who'd probably swindled Lee Dong Wook into it with his purported charms.

"You did a great job with the introduction, sweetheart." Younghyun rubbed his back. "I think the sarcasm really worked."

Wonpil's eyes gleamed balefully out of his cocoon. "You could tell?"

"Well ..." Younghyun thought about it. "Maybe only if someone knew you really well. You did the thing where you sound very sweet and encouraging, but actually are annoyed inside."

"I ..." Wonpil nosed at his shoulder. "I don't do that to you? Do I?"

"Sometimes you do."

"Oh." Wonpil retreated into his blanket cave. "You probably deserve it."

Indulgent fondness swelling like some inexorable honeyed wave in his chest, Younghyun gave into impulse and reached over with his other arm to cuddle Wonpil in close, blanket and all. He'd taken to setting the ondol on low, in any case. This was in no small part related to the story he had recently investigated about the deleterious effect of environmental controls.

"Hyung, what —"

Younghyun cupped the back of Wonpil's head. "You can hide better like this."

"Hiding wasn't the issue," Wonpil said tartly, if a little muffled. "You lying to me was."

On the television, Wonpil was flipping an oversized board of drawing paper over, on which instructions had been painted in blocky handwriting. He was smiling the same sort of smile that he used to give viewers on overcast days — sympathetic but cheering you on — and delivering them with perfect blend of warmth and faint amusement.

"You really did very well, you know," said Younghyun, at the same time that the cast burst into spontaneous applause. The youngest member, from some idol group that Younghyun had only vaguely heard of via his cousin Ppal-gang, had been given a sparkly halo and an animated blush as he gazed wonderingly at Wonpil. Younghyun sort of wanted to yell at him to get in line. "Also, I think that young man has a crush on you."

"Nobody has a fucking crush on me," groused Wonpil into the dark gap between his face, Younghyun's neck, and the back of the sofa.

" _I_ have a fucking crush on you."

There was a pause, as screen Wonpil bowed and the cameras panned over to the cast, who were now trying to figure out what to do next.

"Oh, goodness," Wonpil murmured. He buried his warm face into the crook of Younghyun's neck,and declined to emerge for so long he fell clean asleep, right there in Younghyun's arms.

\---

"Am I cheating?" Wonpil mused uncertainly.

Just that morning, Announcer Ahn had come up to him when he'd been snacking in the newsroom break corner and gazing blankly out of the window, thinking vague thoughts of how literal rising up in the world could be — the weathercasters' office did not afford one the same urban vistas.

"Wonpilie," she'd said, "I just wanted to say, thank you so much for taking the hit and doing that variety programme. This means I can now comfortably go to my morning aerobics class after dropping the kids off at kindergarten."

"Ah." He had smiled his best pleasant skies smile. "Well, I was grateful for the opportunity, sunbaenim."

"Is that so?" Announcer Ahn had trilled a polite, confused laugh. "Well! I suppose your priorities change as you get older."

A few days before, he'd run into Announcer Baek at the coffee machine. She'd given him a long contemplative look when he'd let her go first, and then congratulated him for being more politic than she had expected. That, he had had no response to.

Here and now, Jinyoung was shouting, "Your — space — heater — is — oo — loud!"

Wonpil sighed and leaned over to turn it off. "I said, is this cheating?"

"What? No, come on, you're too good to be stuck in the 7am slot, everyone knows this."

"Thanks, Jinyoungie."

"I mean it! You were robbed in the first place."

"You still didn't have to jump ship in revenge."

"I jumped ship because that way I'd see my boyfriend 50% more of the time, even if it's at work."

"Sure, sure."

Huffing, Jinyoung changed topics. "When are you going to move out of this deathtrap of yours into Brisket Kang's place?"

Wonpil let out a whine. "Stop _calling him that_."

"But it's so funny," said Jinyoung.

"It genuinely upsets him!"

"Oh, _now_ I feel bad."

"Jinyoungie!"

Jinyoung laughed. "I don't call him that to his face. Okay then, when are you going to move into Younghyun-hyung's place?"

Wriggling further under his blankets, Wonpil tucked his hands between his thighs. "I don't — isn't it too soon?"

"It will be too late if you freeze to death."

It was true; this winter was somehow worse than all the ones before. Staying over with Younghyun in his fancy apartment and all of its modern conveniences like _underfloor heating_ and another body in bed had made him soft.

Wonpil sighed. "Look, I'm just saving up my first few paycheques as permanent staff for a deposit on a proper place, okay?"

"Or," said Jinyoung, "you could just move in. It's not like he doesn't know about your terrible night-time wheezing by now, in any case."

"Okay, look." Wonpil made to sit up, before remembering just in time _not_ to let in the cold air. "My sinuses are a lot better now, and — and _anyway_ , experiencing it one or two nights a week is very different from _all the time_."

Jinyoung stared at him out of the luminous surface of his phone. "Is that literally your only objection?"

"It's important! It's the little things that build up, you know!"

"You could always just ask him what he thinks of your snoring."

Wonpil gaped at him. "No!"

"I mean, I always ask Jaebeom if he thinks I should shower yet or not."

Reflecting upon the general hot mess state of the JJ apartment, Wonpil experienced a full body flinch without actually flinching. After the army, he had developed the persistent habit of showering every day.

"And he always says yes," Jinyoung continued, "which works out well for everyone involved."

"If only the public knew about this."

"It would only humanise me more in their eyes," said Jinyoung with the serene confidence of one whose face would allow them to carry off a daringly spangled Chanel jacket on air.

Wonpil closed his eyes and yawned. "Keep telling yourself that. And I'm not going to just _ask_ the guy I've been seeing for all of, what, three months? And he hasn't said anything."

"Then it's fine, isn't it?"

"Though maybe that's because he's too sweet to."

"Wonpilie ..." Jinyoung was audibly exasperated. "Just _let yourself have good things_."

\---

A few days before Christmas, Younghyun was told that he would be sent to Taiwan mid-January to cover their elections as a special correspondent.

"But," Younghyun said over a bubbling vat of budae jjigae, "I haven't convinced Wonpilie to move in with me yet."

The sausage that Jae had been trying to fish out of the stew plopped back in.

" _Daebak_ ," marvelled Dowoon. It was unclear if he meant Younghyun or Jae's deplorable chopstick skills.

"Isn't it a little soon?" Sungjin asked sensibly. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's hesitant because of that."

"I —" Younghyun sighed and poked moodily at his bowlful of ramyeon. "I thought so too, but honestly, I just don't want him to freeze to death."

"Wait, hyung," Dowoon said. "You speak Mandarin?"

Sungjin exclaimed something exasperatedly incomprehensible in satoori, and Jae stared silently into the jjigae.

"What!" Dowoon looked around at everyone. "What?!"

Sungjin shovelled a giant mouthful into his mouth and gestured at Jae.

"The conversation's moved on, Dowoon-ah," Jae told him pityingly before going back to searching in the pot.

"It's fine, Dowoon-ah. I do, just ... poorly," said Younghyun. "I understand it better than I speak it. But I suppose PD Oh and Head Reporter Kim do remember me covering all those other elections and protests in Southeast Asia."

"You do have a knack for getting people to talk to you," Jae said, having finally secured his sausage slice.

"Thanks."

Sungjin finished chewing on the exasperated mouthful he had taken and swallowed with an audible gulp. "You know, PD Bae definitely still hasn't given up on you ..."

"No thank you." The way Wonpil quietly worried before Younghyun went out on investigations and touched him so softly after was enough to put him off the sort of cases that called for cubicle walls papered with mosaiced killer suspect portraits, stuffing flash drives down one's pants, and personal security escorts in the worst scenarios. "Anyway, back to my problems, please?"

"Are you overthinking it?" Sungjin asked. "I mean, Wonpilie hasn't frozen to death yet."

"You haven't been to his place!" Younghyun protested, and ignored the way Jae muttered _thank fuck_. "January is so cold!"

"Dude," Jae said heavily, "just ask Wonpil to house-sit for you if you're so worried about him freezing."

"But ... you know, Sungjin-hyung's right....it hasn't been that long. Maybe he's scared? But..."

It was testament to the bonds of friendship, or maybe just the excellence of this budae jjigae, that Younghyun's friends listened to him agonise while they drank and worked their way through the stew.

"Okay, fuck it, you're just going around in circles." Sungjin threw back a shot and thumped his glass down on the table."Get yourself together, man!"

Jae nodded; he'd stopped eating a while ago and was nursing a mug of citron tea. "If you won't ask Wonpil, we will."

"What? What do you — hey!"

Younghyun scrambled for his phone, now in Dowoon's grasp, Jae having deployed him and his investigative back-up skills.

After a frankly embarrassing amount of mildly drunken flailing, Jae said, "Talk to him or we'll text him. _Promise_."

"Okay, okay," Younghyun said frantically, reaching out for his phone. "Fuck you guys, I will. Now give me back my phone!"

"Oh no," Dowoon intoned dolefully. "I pressed call. Should I hang up?"

But it was too late, for Wonpil's sweet, sticky "Hello? Hyung?" incomprehensibly cut through the ambient din of the restaurant just then.

Younghyun snatched his phone back, agonisingly aware of everyone's eyes on him. He turned away and cupped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, Wonpil-ah—"

"Hyung, are you... are you drinking?" Wonpil sounded sleepy. Because he _had_ been sleeping, of course; they weren't going to switch him over to the 12pm programme until January.

"Sorry, sorry," Younghyun whispered behind his hand. "It's just — people playing jokes."

"Mmf." Wonpil made one of his dozy wheezing noises and sniffled a bit. It felt like Younghyun's heart was being wrung out like a dishrag, though maybe that was also the six full bowls of budae jjigae he'd had and the soju on top of it all. "Okay."

Younghyun laughed helplessly. "Go back to sleep, Pilie. Sorry again."

"S'okay," Wonpil murmured.

"I'm ending the call now."

"Mmm."

Wonpil having presumably fallen back asleep, Younghyun hung up and turned back around to find everyone looking at him.

"Dude," Jae demanded. "What the heck was that."

"He was barely awake!" Younghyun protested. "I'll ask Wonpilie later, I swear."

"You'd better, or else" — Jae grabbed Dowoon by the scruff of his neck — "I'll sicc Dowoonie on you again."

\---

"Are ... all of his messages like this?" Jinyoung asked. He was holding Wonpil's phone gingerly.

Wonpil took his phone back. "Like what?"

"Like ... _Wonpil-ah baby i miss 'u'_ " — Jinyoung made sarcastic air quotation marks — " _pineapple tart aesthetic photo,_ hearteyes emoji, sad sigh emoji?"

"Did you have to read out the emoji too?"

"Stop dodging the question, Wonpilie."

Glancing down at the golden-lit photograph of twinned pineapple tarts on a napkin that, just barely cut off, said 'Cityinn Hot-', Wonpil said, "Only recently. As in, the past few days."

On top of covering the Taiwanese elections, the newsroom PDs had also told Younghyun to film a behind-the-scenes food vlog. Something about playing to Younghyun's strengths and achieving thematic resonance between the news segment and cultural report segments. The full vlogs would _also_ be uploaded to SBS's youtube channel, thus driving digital traffic.

Killing two-to-three birds with one stone, as it were; sometimes literally, Wonpil suspected. He was pretty sure that Younghyun was doing things like buying popcorn chicken from a night market hawker, making food orgasm faces and being charmingly enthusiastic about the seasoning, before opportunistically asking the ajumma about what she thought about the contesting parties' support for small businesses.

The pineapple tarts had been acquired from a ninety-three year old family bakery in some random back alley, according to the most recent vlog episode. Wonpil's mother had phoned him up to ask if "he knew that Reporter Kang Younghyun" (Wonpil had almost choked) and if "he could ask Reporter Kang to courier a box back — we'll pay him back, of course" (Wonpil had strenuously not pointed out that Younghyun was unlikely to let them).

Jinyoung nudged him in the side. "Why does Reporter Kang Younghyun of brisket and jjimjilbang gambling den infamy use emoji like this?"

" _I_ think it's charming."

"Of course you would."

"I've seen PD Im Jaebeom's messages to you, Jinyoungie. ' _i saw bts jin at mubank today and u r more handsome baby',_ " Wonpil recited mockingly.

"Well," said Jinyoung with the placid serenity of — again — one whose face would allow him to get away with wearing a bespangled deep blue-green Chanel- _inspired_ (as Sungkyung-noona had sniffed the other day) jacket on primetime air, "I am."

Snatching Wonpil's phone back, Jinyoung recommenced scrolling back up through the past few days of Younghyun's ridiculous pining distilled into Katalk missives.

" _I ate a chicken tonkatsu_ — isn't that a contradiction in terms?" Jinyoung's face screwed up in confusion. "— _and it made me think of you_. What the hell about a giant chicken katsu the size of Kang Younghyun's already giant face made him _think of you_?"

Mildly, Wonpil said, "I love fried chicken."

"Oh my _god."_ Jinyoung rolled his eyes. "Oh, and look at this one from ... is this the day he arrived in Taipei? _Literally on the same day_?"

"Is that the bubble tea one?"

"Yes, it's the _I had bubble tea and thought about how nice it would be to share one with you_ and — holy fuck, is that _aegyo_? I can't take this anymore." Jinyoung thrust the phone back at Wonpil. "Take this away from me!"

"Serves you right for prying."

"I was curious!"

"Curiosity," Wonpil said with no small amount of smug satisfaction as his phone chirped again, "killed the nyangie."

For a moment, Wonpil thought Jinyoung might have actually succeeded in asphyxiating himself. Which would be horrible for many reasons, not least of which was Younghyun coming home to his flat being turned into a potential murder scene.

But no, Jinyoung was just giving him that specifically baffled/disappointed face when Wonpil checked. "That was weak even for you, Pilie."

"Sorry," said Wonpil cheekily, and checked his recent message.

 _wish i could eat xiaolongbao with u [woobie-eyes emoji]_ , Younghyun had sent, along with a photograph of the Taipei 101 tower stretching up to a deep blue sky streaked with a yolky golden orange and unreal pinks, the tops of some demonstration signs barely visible along the bottom. _there's a din tai fung in here_!

 _Jinyoungie says you're ridiculous_ , Wonpil replied. _You are <3 _

The weekend afternoon news roundup cut to a commercial break. They idly watched show previews for a travel show featuring Kim Haesok and Park Sodam and led by Lee Young Ja before Jinyoung turned the television off and went to explore the shelves, complaining about occupational hazards, only to promptly become outraged by Younghyun's record collection.

"He was keeping them at university friend's place, apparently," Wonpil said. "Oh! We had really nice Thai food the other day when we went to pick up the refurbished record player."

Jinyoung stared at him. He was about to say something when Wonpil's phone chirped again.

All that Younghyun had sent back — possibly in between doing interview spots — was a ㅠ___ㅠ

"You know, Pilie," Jinyoung said sarcastically, "if you were an alien, you'd probably light up like one of those idol fan torches whenever you read one of Brisket Kang's stupid texts."

"Aren't they called lightsticks?"

"Maybe?" Jinyoung shrugged. "Fanlights? Fansticks? Who died and made you an expert on idol culture?"

"Younghyun's kid cousin Ppal-gang is into ..." Wonpil paused. "One of the idol groups. We ran into her briefly in Seorae Village —"

"What the hell is a kid doing in _Seorae Village_?"

Wonpil shrugged. "Extorting expensive French confectioneries and promises to buy idol merchandise for her birthday out of her oppa, I guess. I helped Younghyunie-hyung pick the macarons for her."

"The way you look even when you talk about stupidly mundane shit like this, Pilie ..." Jinyoung shook his head and subsided. "Whatever, you reply to Brisket Kang, I'm going to order dinner."

After making sure Jinyoung got his order right, Wonpil turned back to his phone and typed, _He also says I look stupidly happy. Which I suppose I am <3_

\---

The thing that PD Oh had not accounted for — or had not been in possession of sufficient knowledge to _know_ to account for — was that Wonpil anchoring the 12pm news meant that he would inevitably interact with Younghyun at some point for a Taiwanese election update.

Jae hadn't pointed this out because, in all honesty, Wonpil deserved it. He had, after all, toiled away under the stormy clouds of contract work for three goddamn years, all because of _endemic nepotism_. Also because PD Oh was going through the oriental raisin faster than usual and even the pyramid scheme (Bob's paranoia was CATCHING) ajummas in the lobby had expressed their concerns to Jae, who'd just been standing there.

But what it all meant was this at the bright cheery time of 12:23pm on a freezing January afternoon:

"What," Editor Song was murmuring under her breath, "are these Vibes we're getting between the Announcer Kim and Reporter Kang?"

It was truly a testament to the youth that Jae could hear the capital letter in _Vibes_ loud and clear. He barely contained a spit take of his water because this was so true. SBS's own real life office romance were just talking through a shaky connection with 5 second delay, and yet. And _yet_.

Not even two minutes before, they had cut the screens over to Taichung, where Younghyun had been standing ready on a busy road with that specific look of contained excitement. So far so good, one would have thought. But then Wonpil's " _Hello, Reporter Kang, what's the mood in Taichung right now_?", overshot the standard cordial tone straight into the honey pot.

"He sounds like ... like ..." PD Seo trailed off, boggling.

"Like dalgona," said Editor Song.

"So boyfriend," sighed the new editing intern whose name Jae hadn't memorised yet.

Jae looked over at her.

"Sumi-yah," said Editor Song pityingly, "I think that ship has sailed. It's sailed all the way across the sea to Taiwan."

PD Oh had, when Jae checked, been so surprised that his oriental raisin straw was dangling in his gaping mouth.

"What the heck," the old man said as on screen, Younghyun smiled about ten degrees warmer than his usual reporting smile and launched into his precis. "Whatever, as long as the ratings are high."

As the segment proceeded, Jae concluded that Wonpil would definitely not the only one to blame when this turned out to be a trending Naver topic. They were just so, so stupidly obvious. Younghyun would have his hard-hitting and serious face on for explaining the rally going on the background or conducting a spot interview, but the moment he finished talking he ... he just slipped into the hearteyes he always developed in the vicinity of Wonpil.

Except that Younghyun was distinctly not in the vicinity of Wonpil. There was no excuse for the soft fondness on his face as he looked into the camera, because all this was taking place in the five second delay between Wonpil's question-asking and him listening. There was no excuse at all.

Checking the clock, Jae gestured at Narae-noona and Wonpil to move on soon.

Narae-noona smiled graciously when Younghyun finished talking about digital civics, and said, "Thank you for your insights, Reporter Kang. We have to move on now, but I'm sure we'll hear more as we get closer to election day."

"And," Wonpil added with a hint of a teasing smile, "I'm sure the viewers also look forward to seeing more of you enjoying the night markets on the SBS Youtube channel."

"Well" — Younghyun's smirk had Jae metaphorically girding himself — "I believe in not mixing fun and work, Announcer Kim, but thank you."

It was at this point that the entire fucking studio choked. Narae-noona very badly suppressed a laugh.

Jae choked on his water crackers, recovered like the professional he was, and then busied himself with frantically ordering the editors to cut away. On screen, which still displayed Younghyun's giant smug face, Younghyun's camerawoman choked so audibly Jae was certain that it in itself would become a legendary clip.

"Well!" Narae-noona's eyes had gone a little wide and her ears were definitely faintly pink. "And that's the update on Taiwan's elections. Wonpil-sshi, wouldn't you agree that Taiwan's vibrant democracy is an inspiration?"

"Ah, yes." Wonpil was _visibly amused when he_ turned to acknowledge the question, that cheeky brat. "It's definitely heartening to see and should be an inspiration to the youth of this country. With that, we turn to Reporter Park Hyerim on a group of Korean youth leading a push for environmental reforms across the nation."

\---

All five of them only managed to meet up again in mid-February. The gathering consisted chiefly of gukbap, complaining about the weather, and Younghyun being filled in on the gossip. At least, Younghyun thought as he was assailed by the most egregious speculations about his personal life, the restaurant had free rice refills.

" _Wow Reporter Kang must_ really love _Taiwan_ ," Jae was saying, "is the stupidest and funniest take."

Wonpil giggled a little into his spicy beef soup. "It sort of is."

"Isn't there a rumour about Younghyun and Narae-sunbaenim?" Dowoon asked. Sungjin looked like this was the first he was hearing any of this, which made Younghyun feel a lot better about himself.

"It's because Narae-noona blushed," said Wonpil.

"She blushed because she has all the shame you apparently lack, Kim Wonpil," Jae told him. "Also, now a not-insignificant portion of netizens think she's a cougar."

Younghyun put his spoon down to bury his face in his hands. "How can — I'm _thirty-two_ — sunbaenim's not even —"

"Don't stress out about it hyung." Wonpil stroked his back. "It's okay, noona mostly thinks this has improved her street cred. Or at least her aerial yoga class social standing."

"Do you want to see the memes?" Jae asked, unlocking his phone. "I think it's great our newsroom is interesting enough to have _several_ meme generators."

"No," said Younghyun at the same time Sungjin and Dowoon crowded around Jae to peer at his phone.

"And in any case, _how_ is there a .... what did you call it? _Broadcasting fandom_?" Younghyun asked incredulously. "I thought the youth just get their news from, I don't know, searching Youtube these days?"

"This attitude is unhelpful to attracting a younger demographic, Reporter Kang," Jae told him severely.

"Oh, we investigated a BTS fan merchandise MLM scheme that got dropped from investigation in 2017," said Sungjin. "Truly fascinating."

"Thank you for your contribution, Bob." Jae transferred some more fish cake onto Sungjin's plate. "But really, dude, can you stop making my job so hard?"

"It's not like I mean to," Younghyun mumbled.

"I thought it was funny," Wonpil said serenely. "My mother asked me about you, the other day. _She_ wasn't thrown off."

"What ..." Younghyun said cautiously; Wonpil had been forced to disclose their relationship to his mother when he'd brought the boxes full of Taiwanese pastries home. "About me?"

"She wanted to know if you'd really enjoyed Taiwan and if you had any recommendations for holiday spots. Oh, and she really liked those sun pastries you brought back."

Younghyun had handed Wonpil a bag containing definitely more than just pineapple tarts on his return, saying, "I got these _taiyangbing_ from Taichung too. Sun cakes."

And then when Wonpil had tried one and started smiling just because it tasted like sunshine just burst in his mouth, Younghyun had added, "But you're sweeter than any _taiyangbing_ filling, Pilie."

Wonpil had collapsed into hysterical giggles, gasped out "Why are you like this," and had had to be wrestled into submission for a sticky, honeyed kiss.

Here and now, Wonpil reached across the table they were squeezed around and pushed his face to the side. "Hyung, _stop_."

"What? I'm just relieved."

"Okay, something gross is happening and I don't want to know. Oh, wait! Oh!" Jae perked up with that particular gleam in his eye — the gossip gremlin gleam. "Did you know you've been fairly popular amongst ajumma of a certain age group? Apparently your name recognition amongst the news-watching audience ages 45 and up is third only to Senior Reporter Myeong."

Younghyun wasn't sure what this was an indicator of, considering that Senior Reporter Myeong was old enough to have covered the democratic struggle in the 1980s for AFP back before SBS had even been a glimmer in the Korean government's eye. As an age peer or senior to Younghyun's apparent hit demographic, the primary reason he wasn't Head Reporter was that he was terrible at redtape.

"All those pieces about halmeonis getting scammed," Sungjin said. "It's got to be."

"That and your mukbangs."

"Kang Younghyun," Dowoon deadpanned. "Special food correspondent." Then he started laughing in his inimitable way.

"Actually," began Younghyun, turning to Jae. "Did you have anything to do with my recurring segment on the afternoon programme?"

Younghyun had come back from Taiwan and found on his table an assignment for a half-hour segment during the Thursday afternoon news briefing analysing recent social issues.

"No," said Jae in most suspicious tones. "Why would I?"

"The first topic. Housing issues, social housing, income inequality ..."

"Mere coincidence."

Sungjin jumped in then: "I thought the statistic about couples moving in together to afford a place was interesting. Social change."

"Is that a hint?" Jae, that fucking chaos agent, asked whilst cutting the world's most significant look at Wonpil.

Everyone stared at the both of them. Dowoon started humming the wedding march under his breath. Wonpil had his pleasantly blank face on as he seemed completely enthralled by peeling apart his sprig of spring onion kimchi layer by layer.

"Guys," Younghyun tried. "Please, it's too soon for that."

Ignoring him, Jae said, "Wonpil-ah, how did you enjoy having the place all to yourself?"

"Guys..." Younghyun tried again.

"Sorry? Oh." Wonpil looked up from his dissection, putting his chopsticks down. "Yes, well, it was strange not having hyung around, but at least I didn't burn the place down. And it was nice when that snowstorm hit."

"Aren't ondol great," was Dowoon's contribution to whatever the hell was going on.

"Well," Younghyun said cautiously, "you're always welcome, you know that."

His heart flipped in a way entirely _un_ attributable to the gukbap, as Wonpil smiled warmly back and said, "I know."

\---

The other upshot of Younghyun's coverage of the Taiwan elections was that he did actually kind of become SBS's de-facto special food correspondent and/or go-to sacrifice at the altar of food-related variety.

At least Younghyun was enjoying himself. Someone had wanted to make him a recurring guest on Delicious Rendezvous — there was apparently "something very charming about him enjoying food" — but Younghyun had declined on account of the erratic schedule of his actual job.

"It's one of those decisions," Younghyun had confided, charmingly unconscious of how ridiculous he sounded, "that really makes you reassess your priorities in life."

"He really eats so well," Wonpil's mum had remarked, when he'd visited home on a weekend and they'd been watching the latest episode of SBS's newest food panel show (not, for once, helmed by Chef Baek Jongwon). "When are you going to bring him to meet us, Wonpilie?"

"I —" Wonpil spluttered, while the television showed a movingly cut together montage of black bean tteokbokki being cooked. "We — it's not like we're getting married soon?"

"Nonsense, we're not so old-fashioned."

" _Eomma_ ," Wonpil started, but was promptly hushed when the montage cut back to the panel enthusing about the dish, and then Younghyun equally enthusiastically put away prodigious amounts of said food along with a young man from an idol group.

"Wow, it's like he's your son," Jeon Hyunmoo remarked to Younghyun, nodding at the bleach-blond head bent over a bowl. "You even eat in the same way."

Younghyun laughed, eyes creasing in a way that had Wonpil's mother cooing, but only demurred about how that was too much of an honour.

"Hyung," Wonpil said to Younghyun later, "please tell me before you have acquired a child."

His slightly panicked look of surprise, Wonpil decided, was very cute. "What? I haven't — is it because of the Pororo blanket? It's been so long?"

"First, I'm apparently a single mother." Wonpil felt the corner of his mouth tick up at the growing _kicked puppy very sorry but unsure what for_ look on Younghyun's face. "Now we have a food baby. I can't keep up, hyung."

"Oh, god, Bang Chan-sshi?" The alarm disappeared off Younghyun's face and he laughed. "He's a nice kid, I can see why Ppal-gang has a crush on him. Hey, do you think she'll think I'm cool now?"

Feeling a bit like how a _taiyangbing_ must, Wonpil smiled and shook his head, reaching out to cradle Younghyun's face. "No, hyung, never."

Surely, Wonpil thought to himself a week later, this honeyed warmth that suffused his bones whenever he was with Younghyun should have ended so many months in.

The spring rains had arrived; in a fit of nostalgia, they were having a late supper date at a jeon and makgeolli joint popular with university students through the ages.

They had just finished their first kettle of makgeolli and platter of jeon when a tall girl wearing a KU Political Affairs Club windbreaker came up to them, and confessed to being (a) inspired by Younghyun; (b) an aspirational broadcast journalist herself.

"Ah," said Younghyun, awkward with compliments as ever, "uh, thank you. I'm sure you can do it! Work hard!"

"You're so cute, hyung," Wonpil giggled at him when the girl had left. "Ah, I remember being that age."

"Wonpil-ah, are you already drunk?" Younghyun was smiling so indulgently Wonpil wanted to hide. "Here, eat more jeon."

"I _am_ ," Wonpil said petulantly. "Now let me tell you about the time when I totally fucked up on campus radio."

So the night passed in a pleasant, warm haze: good food, good drink, and a good shoulder to sway into, Younghyun catching him before he fell off his stool.

"I'm sleepy," Wonpil told Younghyun when they were standing outside, holding hands whilst they waited for their taxi. He felt half as though he were already dreaming, with the halogen and neon lights of Seoul at night refracting against glossy black tarmac, the depthless pools of rain from the steady downpour, the cool fine spray against their faces. "I'm going to fall asleep on the way back."

Younghyun made an indulgent humming noise and nosed at his temple, which probably just smelled like hairspray and frying oil. "What should I do?"

"You figure it out." Wonpil, mildly roused by the fit of irrational pique that stirred his blood, pouted. "Hyung."

"I don't know, Pilie, I had to finish that last kettle of makgeolli almost all on my own."

Wonpil's chance to respond was stolen by the arrival of their taxi. They slid in; Younghyun gave Wonpil's address and tucked Wonpil's head against his shoulder.

"How opportunistic, Kang Younghyun," Wonpil murmured, eyes slipping shut.

Younghyun squeezed his hand. "Maybe I'll make sure you don't die on the stairs up."

"How nice," Wonpil said absently, weightless thoughts drifting through his mind as they sped through Seoul.

Younghyun no longer pressured him about moving in after their tiff, carefully refrained from asking about Wonpil's flat-hunt, and was so tangibly fond even when Wonpil was being bitchy at him. Maybe, he mused sleepily, noting with muzzy relief that he had yet to start making wheezy noises, maybe it would all turn out okay.

\---

"For some ratings magic," PD Oh had allegedly said at a strategy meeting, "let's try this."

This, being Wonpil's promotion to the 7pm news to play the Flower Boy Announcer counterpart to Head Reporter Kim's Strong Lady Reporter.

Younghyun was of course very proud of Wonpil — not that he had anything to do with Wonpil's achievements other than be in love with him. But it had not occurred to him until he was watching the news that this meant the two people to whom he could not say no were at the same desk together. Bonding, probably.

The ratings spike that PD Oh had hoped for did come through; apparently people did actually like the " _the cherry blossoms are gone, but we have one for you every weeknight at 7pm_!" subliminal messaging.

It was on one such weeknight that Younghyun found himself propping up a wall in the corridor outside the 7pm studio, gym bag at his feet, and idly wondering if he should go back up to the newsroom office to do some research while he waited. Wonpil's voice came clear through the door, then, saying something about sleep apnea. Younghyun perked up. The door swung wide open reveal Wonpil, and behind him Younghyun's aunt.

"Oh, hyung, you —" Wonpil's mouth fell open in surprise. He started smiling, and Younghyun rediscovered just how lovely he was.

"Why are you loitering here?" Head Reporter Kim demanded. Then she finally seemed to notice Wonpil ambling over to his side. Her face did something unrecognisable. "Oh, really now."

"I'm not loitering, Reporter Kim. This isn't a public place, and anyway I've only been here for about ten minutes."

"You were waiting for ten minutes?" Wonpil, who was chronically punctual, widened his eyes. "I'm so sorry, okay, I'm going to get changed as quickly as possible. See you tomorrow, Seongsook-imo!"

Younghyun choked on nothing while Wonpil dragged him away by the hand towards the men's dressing room. "Did you just call Reporter Kim _imo_?"

He was given what, in his opinion, was a very unjustifably unimpressed look. "You're the one who's actually related to her; it's weirder that you keep calling her Reporter Kim."

"I —!" Younghyun wasn't sure how to untangle the hopeless, snarled mess of his familial relations. "Only by _marriage_ , and they're _divorced_ , and —"

"And imo still sends you on errands to go do things for her daughter, and you do them."

Younghyun spluttered. What was he supposed to do, just let his baby cousin go hang? "Do I have a _choice_?"

"She said you used to help her pick Ppal-gang up from elementary school and take her to daycare after school, whenever it was imo's turn with Ppal-gang, but she had a lead. Back in university."

"Ah." Younghyun hitched his gym bag up his shoulder and looked down at the tiled floor. "Well, I mean ... if I didn't, who would have?"

"Hyung." When Younghyun looked up, Wonpil was giving him a particularly soft look.

"What?" Younghyun felt unaccountably shy.

Wonpil shook his head, smiling faintly as he pushed the dressing room door open. "Later."

\---

If truly pressed, Wonpil would admit to having looked forward to Younghyun presenting during _Evening Brief_. Not least because of how everyone else seemed to approach the occasion with horrified anticipation.

After the pre-broadcast huddle, he faintly overheard PD Oh saying to Younghyun from where they were standing behind the cameras: "Also, maybe you'll stop looking at Kim Wonpil like that with your aunt around."

"Like what?" Younghyun asked shamelessly.

"Fuck you," Jae told him slightly too loudly. "Whatever you do, don't hold hands."

Grinning, Younghyun said, "Didn't you hear? I don't mix work with pleasure."

"Don't preen, Wonpil-ah," Head Reporter Kim told him, calmly flipping a page in her notes. "It's unbecoming."

Behind the cameras, PD Oh could be spotted swatting Younghyun with his binder of favours and statistics and then offering Jae some oriental raisin.

Wonpil couldn't hear what Jae said as he shook his head, but he imagined that he'd just informed PD Oh that he was allergic to all fruit except apples.

Then Jae was calling go, Wonpil got the little thrill he still got up his spine, and Head Reporter Kim was greeting their viewership and starting the news updates for the evening. Maybe it was some bizarre form of exhibitionism, but Wonpil felt a little _more_ this evening; more vibrant, more alert, more aware of his skin, with Younghyun watching.

Sometimes, when they were tangled up with each other in bed, Younghyun would whisper confessions about how Wonpil made him desert his good sense far too easily. But the same could be said of Wonpil.

Anyone who'd been a live news studio before knew that in the time a prerecorded clip rolled, anything could happen. News broke; lighting fixtures were hastily readjusted; coffee was dumped all over a poor reporter in pursuit of the truth.

This night, Younghyun leaned in with a sardonic remark about the anti-vaxxer he'd interviewed; Reporter Kim sighed extravagantly; and Wonpil ... Wonpil couldn't help the giggles.

"PD Oh might disembowel me with his straw if you don't stop laughing, Pilie," Younghyun whispered hurriedly.

Behind Sound Director Jung, hunched over her soundboard, Jae gently facepalmed and called a weary standby in studio.

Struggling to contain his trailing giggles, Wonpil turned quickly away from Younghyun's dancing eyes and sunk his teeth into his upper lip.

"Here to talk about the troubling increase in refusals to participate in the national immunisation programme," Reporter Kim stoically told the cameras three seconds later, though a corner of her mouth was _definitely_ twitching. "Reporter Kang Younghyun is in the studio with us today. Reporter Kang, please tell us more about their concerns."

"PD-nim," said Intern Nam half an hour later, timidly and very much accidentally over team-wide comms channel during a commercial break that gave Wonpil half a minute to get to the large presentation screen, "there are already SNS posts."

Jae's deep sigh was cut off abruptly halfway through, as he presumably switched them to a direct channel. Wonpil hurriedly smoothed any amusement out of his face as he prepared to talk their viewers through the ongoing CPTPP renegotiations.

"You two," Jae said to Wonpil when he hopped off the soundstage at the end of the broadcast, taking the totally unnecessary helping hand that Younghyun was holding out, "are making me bald prematurely."

"That's just genetics, Jae," said Younghyun.

Jae whacked him with his clipboard. "What are you still doing here, anyway?"

Youghyun raised their linked hands and his own eyebrows. "What else?"

"Oh my god." Jae whacked him again. " _This_ is why the fucking netizens are just vomiting excitedly all over the internet. Which, like, who the fuck with SNS is watching the 7pm news?"

Younghyun smirked in a very subjectively compelling way that Wonpil suspected would be objectively annoying. "Jae, that's not very helpful for — what was it again? — reaching out."

"Jaehyung-ah," said PD Oh, "I think you should try some oriental raisin."

"I'm ALLERGIC!" Jae exclaimed.

PD Oh, who clearly had forgotten raised an eyebrow. "Right. Sorry. Moving on. I think we will ban Reporter Kang from appearing in studio at 7pm. This is untenable."

"Oh" — Wonpil snuck Younghyun a mischievous look — "Okay."

"What do you mean, okay?!" Younghyun looked betrayed.

Head Reporter Kim laughed. "Come on, PD Oh, you can't control the news cycle."

"I can damn well try," he muttered, but walked away to go harangue one of the poor techs about something or other.

This did have the effect of leaving Wonpil and Younghyun alone with Head Reporter Kim and her piercing look. "You know, Wonpil-ah, it's a wrench to have to admit it, but I have to say Announcer Kim made the right call with you. And that silly man."

"Um, I. Thank you?" Wonpil clutched Younghyun's hand tighter. He'd barely talked to Head Announcer Kim a handful of time; he got the impression she suffered his presence amongst her ranks, or resented him for inadvertently ruining her dynamic Announcer-Reporter duo. Younghyun squeezed his hand back, but said nothing.

Reporter Kim's eyes dropped briefly to their hands, before she half-smiled, shook her head, and turned on her terrifyingly spiked heel to go — oh, go hunt down poor PD Oh, apparently.

"What ..."

"I don't try to understand," Younghyun said hurriedly. "Shall we go?"

When they were safely free of the SBS building and on the subway, Wonpil did his best to suppress the mischief in his voice. "Hyung, do you get weird vibes between PD Oh and Seongsook-imo?"

"Please stop," Younghyun said, which meant he definitely did. "She's my _aunt_."

\---

"Hello," said Announcer Baek, "I heard they rescheduled your presentation to 9pm news because there's a blanket ban on you."

"You heard wrong," Younghyun volleyed back. "We merely settled the final cut an hour ago."

"Cutting it close," observed Announcer Choi jovially. "We did that all the time in London. Can't help it, with the time zones."

"I'd like to go to London," said Younghyun wistfully. He'd like to hold hands with Wonpil while walking down a cobblestoned street. "I can speak English."

"Can you? That's good. You'll enjoy it. Why —" It was at this point that Announcer Choi launched into a spiel about football, his season tickets to Arsenal FC games, and "Ahyeon-ah, you know I don't mind helping you out, but when you find someone else I'm booting Doojun-hyung out of that sports anchor position."

Announcer Baek gave Younghyun a look of _see what you've done_.

"You're on primetime news, oppa," she said patiently.

"Oh, well," said Announcer Choi vaguely. "A man has — oh, it's time? Roger that."

After the programme wrapped up, they headed out for drinks.

"Then why did you agree, sunbaenim?" asked Younghyun.

"Well, you know, can't let a hoobae down. It's all right, I'll do my time. There're always people jockeying for the primetime slots, anyway, aren't there?"

It turned out that Announcer Choi had got over the whole primetime jockeying thing before his London posting, was blessedly unconcerned with gossip, and intimidatingly passionate about football and the upcoming SBS Family Sports Day. He kept trying to get Younghyun to join the newsroom basketball team once he learnt Younghyun played for fun sometimes with friends.

Announcer Baek was just shaking her head slowly and perusing the menu. Abruptly, Younghyun felt a strange sense of disjoint — what was he, typically a denizen of pojangmacha, doing here at fancy drinks in this fancy, shiny black-and-chrome bar with these particular colleagues?

"It's important to have interests and a life outside of work," Announcer Choi intoned suddenly, the big eyes that sometimes made him look like a foreigner boring into Younghyun's _soul_. "Okay? Remember that. Don't let it consume you."

"Er." Younghyun ate a piece of fancy bar _gratis_ popcorn. It tasted like normal popcorn, just with seaweed flakes on top. "I ... try not to?"

"Good. You don't always have to aim for what everyone else wants."

Younghyun vaguely wondered why Announcer Choi hadn't been around about nine months ago to dispense random bits of hoary wisdom.

"Because someone will come along and offer it to you?" said Announcer Baek with a half-smile.

Announcer Choi's entire face scrunched up. "Excuse me, I think I'm the one doing you a favour here, Ahyeon-ah."

"Right," she murmured, concealing an eyeroll, before waving a waiter over.

"Do what interests you," said Announcer Choi, turning back to Younghyun, "and makes you feel like ... _ah_ , this is what I want to wake up to do, even though I've waiting outside this _chaebol_ 's sex cottage outside fucking Llandudno for 36 hours and only had a cold shower and it's freezing and you have to try and clap a freezing and boiling stream of water together to try and achieve any semblance of humane temperature to wash your face —" he paused and cleared his throat. "Well, I'm sure you know what I mean."

Despite having no idea what hellish taps Announcer Choi was talking about, Younghyun _did_ get the gist of what he was saying, as well the impression that Announcer Choi rather missed life at the London desk. Where it seemed the lines between reporter and announcer weren't as rigidly drawn. "Yes, sunbaenim."

"Just call me hyung." Announcer Choi pat him on the forearm. "Seriously though. It's easy to get lost when you're younger, especially in broadcasting, but if you want to last a long time, then that's what you should do."

Unexpectedly touched, Younghyun nodded. "I think I will, hyung. Thank you."

\---

Wonpil had accepted the weather announcer position with his prettiest opaque smile and the burning desire to _show them all_ in his heart. He'd tried, on several occasions, articulating this to Younghyun: how he'd worked so hard to get _good_ at it at least fifty percent out of spite. The other fifty percent had of course, been out of financial necessity, and the persistent, blind belief that when an opportunity came around, Wonpil had to be prepared for it.

"I think maybe your percentages need some rejigging," Younghyun always said, and then after the fifth time, teased, "Maybe it's just 49% spite?"

The thing was that on the other side of four years of dogged, seemingly thankless (definitely benefits-less) determination, Wonpil could now be grateful for the learning experience. He'd learnt how to learn, how to make allies in the organisation, how to put his head down and put the work in.

Now, every day he was learning new things too. The sheer breadth of their programme's coverage required it: waking up to routinely check his inbox, the newswire feeds, the international broadsheets. Going in everyday to work on that night's programme. Preparing for interviews. _Interviewing_ , and god if that wasn't still nervewracking after a good six months.

"Journalists," Reporter Kim had said to him over afternoon coffee once, "go out into the world and gather up facts, anecdotes, eyewitness accounts. Then we frame it all, put it into a narrative. So you see how this plays into anchoring?"

"Um," said Wonpil then. He'd been warned of this by Younghyun; the petty sniping that always arose between his two formidable aunts about whether reporters or announcers made better anchors, at family get-togethers. "The ... when we introduce reports? And analyse them after. And when we have additional interviews."

Reporter Kim had smiled faintly and raised her thermos to him. "Cohesion, yes. And the _story_. Humans make sense of the world out of stories."

So now Wonpil fell into bed every night exhausted, but it was the exhaustion of growth, of improvement, not the soul-grinding entrapment he'd previously found himself in.

"You look good," said one of his school friends, when they met up for coffee one weekend. "Happy."

"I am happy," replied Wonpil, smiling into his cold brew.

Happily too did his birthday pass; it had been on a Sunday, and on the following Monday, Younghyun brought him a surprise cake on the rooftop where Wonpil had first kissed him. (Well, kissed him _properly_ , with feeling and all that sort of thing.)

"What is this?" Wonpil half-laughed, looking at the twee little cardboard box from the European-inspired bakery around the corner.

"For your birthday hangover," said Younghyun. "Extending it a little. A birthday festival."

Wonpil took the box and balanced it on one thigh. He carefully unfolded it under Younghyun's eager gaze and couldn't help but smile.

"You like it?"

Equally carefully putting the small, round mousse cake studded with strawberries aside, Wonpil glanced around quickly to make sure the coast was clear, and leaned forward to peck Younghyun on the lips.

"Very much, hyung, thank you." Wonpil retreated before Younghyun could do anything that would get them _both_ suspended and picked the cake back up. "Did you bring forks?"

The flash of panic across Younghyun's face was cutely hilarious. Fortunately, one singular fork was excavated from the bakery's paper bag.

Younghyun waggled his eyebrows. "I can feed you."

"Absolutely not," Wonpil told him sternly, and dug in.

After the first few appreciative bites and fending off more lechery from Younghyun, Wonpil said, "May's looking nice."

Younghyun licked the corner of his lips free of some vanilla mousse. "The weather's getting warm again, yeah."

"Hyung..." Wonpil carved off another thin sliver of the rapidly diminishing cake. "I want to get a present for Seongsook-imonie." Into Younghyun's silence, he added, "You know, your aunt."

"I know who you mean." Younghyun looked baffled and mildly horrified. "But why?"

"Well, you know, it's teacher's day soon, and she's taught me so much since I started working with her." Wonpil fed him the slice and continued. "Not to knock my previous co-anchors or the training, but I just ... feel like I've been learning so much."

Younghyun looked vaguely constipated. "I guess. Reporter Kim _did_ refine her coaching technique on me when I was in undergrad."

"She is really proud of you, you know, even if she doesn't show it." Wonpil smiled faintly. As befitted the birthday boy, he ate the last bit of cake. "She's like an aunt to me now, but the way she talks about you sometimes... it's like you're her son too."

Younghyun turned solemn, then. "After she divorced my uncle ... it was really hard for her, I think. You know what Korea is like, and it was even worse back then. And then..." He sighed. "She got her stupid little yogilates friend circle group and I guess ... aunties just compete for social capital via their children?"

Wonpil laughed a little. "Don't your parents?"

Looking out at the skyline, Younghyun shrugged. "I think they're a bit detached from all that ... stuff. And in any case, they moved to Canada the moment I passed probation." He laughed drily. "Then I was banished to the SEA beat."

Giving Younghyun a considering look, Wonpil reached across the few inches between their thighs on the bench to slip his fingers between Younghyun's. "But it was good in the end, wasn't it? It was worth everything you have now?"

Wonpil definitely thought so. Maybe Younghyun would never have sat down across from Wonpil at that pojangmacha; maybe Wonpil would never then have invited him up for not-tea and then actual ramyeon; maybe he'd never have been moved enough by the way Younghyun smiled to watch Younghyun grow as a reporter through all those early morning reruns of the Correspondents' Report.

"Yeah," Younghyun said finally, smiling at him.

Maybe he was thinking the same thing too. Wonpil hoped he was. It was.

\---

"I'm too old to be baby-sat," complained Ppal-gang.

"Take that up with your mother," Younghyun told her. "Mothers, plural."

"You're just like appa," she said acidly. "Bullied by two boomer women."

"Ppang-yah," Younghyun sighed. "Please just do your fucking homework."

"I'm going to tell eomma you swore in front of me. Also stop calling me that!"

"Your mother knew the risks."

"You guys are so weird," said Ppal-gang. " _You're_ weird. It's like a Friday night and you're not on a date? What happened to macarons oppa?"

Younghyun wished he could get a beer from the fridge, but that would be one step too far. The entire clan would probably descend on his head for drinking while babysitting. Never mind that he was also doing work.

"Nothing's _happened_ , you brat. He's just busy."

"That's what they always say right before they break up with you," said Ppal-gang sagely, but returned to her notebook at Younghyun's vicious look.

Wonpil was, in fact, busy looking at flats. Younghyun knew he should just be happy that his boyfriend was finally looking to move out from his death trap of a roof-top tin-shack (only one out of these three things was accurate), but part of him felt uneasy anyway. Maybe it's because Wonpil said very little about his ongoing hunt, even though Younghyun knew by now that he had a very tidy list of criteria — he'd seen it, tacked up on a wall in the aforementioned death trap — and was applying his habit of thorough research before committing to an expense.

"I can't concentrate with you sighing like that, oppa."

Younghyun sighed. "Don't you have earphones?"

"They broke," Ppal-gang said sadly. "And the eommas have bullied appa into not replacing them to, I don't know, teach me a lesson or something."

"I'll say," said Younghyun, "considering you _just_ got those for your birthday."

Ppal-gang huffed.

"You know, when I was your age," Younghyun began, and was rudely cut off.

"You sound like _such_ an old fogey when you start that shit," said Ppal-gang. "It will turn macarons oppa off. I swear."

As though Wonpil weren't equally guilty of falling into long, rambling reminiscences about the good old days when phones had buttons and convenience store snacks were cheaper.

"I assure you," said Younghyun, "that my relationship is not in any danger from —" he paused. "Actually..."

"Oh my god." Ppal-gang put down the pencil she had been twirling and turned to face him. "Oppa, are we going to talk about boys? Finally? At last?"

"I am already regretting this." Younghyun looked at his laptop, at his cousin, back at his laptop, and decisively disconnected from the SBS VPN.

"No! Don't! I am the number one giver of couples' advice in my school, oppa," said Ppal-gang, child of not one but _two_ divorces. "So many negative examples in my life!"

Younghyun opened his mouth. He found himself wordless.

"I just tell people the opposite of what my parents do! And it _works_!"

This evening, Younghyun thought hysterically, was taking on a cast of unreality. He couldn't wait to tell Wonpil about this — except, of course, then he'd have to tell Wonpil what he was asking Ppal-gang about, and then possibly Wonpil would go off to sulk in Younghyun's spare bedroom, which really was exclusively for him to sulk in at this point, and — oh, oh fuck.

The sound of Ppal-gang saying his actual name jerked Younghyun out of his spiral.

"How soon," said Younghyun distantly, "is too soon to move in together, Ppang-yah?"

"Oh my god," Ppal-gang said again. "Stop calling me that! And I don't know, like, maybe two months? Eomonie moved in with appa after, like, five."

Younghyun remembered that. The scandal of it all back then, living together before getting married. And then Head Announcer Kim had dumped his uncle anyway, years and years later. He wondered if anyone had ever thought of sending Ppal-gang for counselling.

"Are you emo because you want macarons oppa to come live with you?" Ppal-gang picked up her phone and started surfing through that infernal Tik Tok app.

"I'm not — what do you even know about _emo_ , you baby," snapped Younghyun.

She held her phone up to display ... some Westerner kids her own age dressed up like it was 2005 again. "It's trendy now, oppa. Keep up."

Dragging a hand down his face, Younghyun reminded himself that he'd started this. "I do want him to come live with me, because — you don't need to know the reasons. But I feel like he thinks it's too soon, and I don't want to pressure him, and we've already — uh, we had one disagreement before and I just —"

"Oppa," sighed Ppal-gang, still flicking rapidly through her screen, "I really don't think macarons oppa is that complicated. Just ask him." She glanced up at him. "You know, _communicate_."

"Why are you so fixated on macarons," Younghyun complained, feeling grumpy about a teenager telling him the same thing his own friends had been. "They're just sugar and egg whites. They're so sweet."

Ppal-gang gave him a longer look that was rather reminiscent of the kind of piercing, disdainful flaying both her mothers were masters of.

"You wouldn't understand, oppa," she sniffed eventually and pressed at her screen. Over the sound of a terrible Drake song suddenly blaring from her phone, she said, "They're works of culinary _art_."

\---

"Have you found a nice place yet, Wonpilie?" asked Reporter Kim. "You said you had viewings, last Friday."

Wonpil pursed his lips. "I don't know ... nothing really fits right."

"Sometimes you have to settle." Reporter Kim paused; her lips twisted. "Though sometimes, settling is worse in the long run."

"I keep feeling like something is missing," said Wonpil, electing not to open _that_ can of worms.

She raised an eyebrow. "What, like a washer/dryer set?"

"No, no ... I don't know. It's just ... " Wonpil trailed off and sighed; he _had_ resolved not to lie to himself so much last year. This was when Jinyoung had laughed at him for catching feelings _years_ after being so put out by Younghyun's frankly fuckboy-like behaviour post-one-night-stand.

"You're upset about a rebound disappearing off to Thailand?" Jinyoung had demanded back then.

"I mean — I'm not _upset_ upset," Wonpil had protested weakly. "I just ... he only sent me a generic sticker! What the fuck! I let him stay for ramyeon!"

"You _let him stay for ramyeon_?" Jinyoung's eyebrows had disappeared into his fringe.

"Ugh," Wonpil had said, "whatever."

But then six months later he'd found himself watching Younghyun's reports whenever he couldn't sleep or was stuck on an early morning slot, and recounting to Jinyoung the particularly impressive aspects of Younghyun's reportage whenever they met up.

And _then_ he'd let Jinyoung give him false hope about Younghyun possibly getting in touch after Wonpil had agreed to let HR use that photograph of him and a puppy in the CSR update.

"Wonpilie," Jinyoung had told him solemnly whilst they got shitfaced off precisely one shared bottle of soju. "Wonpilie, you have a type and it's fucking tragic."

" _Your_ type is tragic," Wonpil had mumbled in response, and woken up the next morning to a thumping hangover and the despairing knowledge that maybe he had a crush on the guy he'd invited up for not-tea and watched standing on a totally unsafe Cambodian factory roof saying serious things about _labour exploitation_ and _complicity_ while gazing soul-searchingly into the camera.

Cut to almost three years later: Wonpil now was dating the guy he'd taken home for not-tea, having discovered the silly, impulsive, earnest man beneath the hard-hitting Reporter Kang persona. And the inescapable truth that nothing fit because all he wanted was Younghyun's lovely, corner-filled, too-large-for-one-person apartment.

Reporter Kim pat him on the hand. "I'm sure you'll find a good place for your needs, Wonpilie. Now, I have a favour to ask of you."

Wonpil blinked at her. "Ah...yes?"

"Can you please help me pick Ppal-gang up from taekwondo tonight? Something's come up. I don't trust that neighbourhood after dark."

"I —"

"I'm sorry to do this, I'd usually ask Younghyun but — well, I'm sure you know — he's somewhere in Bucheon now."

"Of course," Wonpil said faintly, reeling from the _I'm sure you know_.

"Ppal-gang says she's met you before, with Younghyun, so she'll be all right. I'll let her know."

Blank with shock at Reporter Kim's show of trust, Wonpil went through the day mostly on auto-pilot, and only began truly panicking as he stood outside the dojo with his hands in his pockets, trying to pick Younghyun's baby cousin out of the flood of kids rushing out of the single glass door.

"Oh," said Ppal-gang when she spotted him, "it's you, not the old guy."

"Your...father?" He asked stupidly, trying not to shrink under the judging eyes of her classmates. The mugginess was already setting in on this early summer night; his work shirt was sticking to his back.

"No, the other one. Like, my mothers' weird colleague. Always looks stressed out."

 _"PD Oh_?" Wonpil asked, incredulous.

"Sure." Ppal-gang shrugged. "Wait, oppa, the bus I take is the other way."

"Oh, goodness." Wonpil grabbed onto her backpack. "No, I'm putting you in a taxi."

" _Omo_." Ppal-gang whipped around, screeching: "Subinnie! Wanna share a car with me back?"

Someone came screaming up to them dressed in what Wonpil was startled to recognise as his own high school uniform. God, he felt old.

"Sure! Who's this?"

"My mum's colleague," Ppal-gang said, revealing a hitherto undisplayed sense of discretion. "This way you don't have to take the taxi with me, oppa. Subinnie lives in the block next to mine."

Wonpil hesitated and shook his head. "No, I think I'll just make sure you two get home okay."

In the taxi, Wonpil texted Younghyun: _What is happening._

 _???_ , Younghyun replied quickly.

_Sending Ppal-gang home from taekwondo._

Unhelpfully, Younghyun replied: _Oh no, you've said yes. ): You'll never be free now. ))):_

Wonpil thought about it. There could, he decided, be worse fates.

"Oppa, are you texting Younghyun-oppa?" Ppal-gang asked sleepily.

"I feel like you should be calling me samchon instead," he said to the two girls falling asleep in the backseat.

"Don't be stupid," said Ppal-gang, "then I'd have to call Younghyun-oppa samchon too, and he's definitely _not_."

Wonpil smiled at the taxi driver ajusshi who'd glanced over, obviously scandalised by the impudent child. "She's just like that, it's okay."

"Didn't know you had two old cousins," remarked Soobin.

"Guess I do now." Ppal-gang gave Wonpil a significant look via the rearview mirror.

Wonpil sank down and looked back at his phone.

_Between your aunt and cousin, I don't think I have a choice._

_And me?_ Younghyun responded.

Biting down on a smile, Wonpil sent back, _I trust you, hyung_.

\---

"Are flowers traumatising to you now?" Wonpil enquired.

Cicadas shirred away in the trees lining the trail they were taking a post-prandial stroll along; the Han was a dark, shimmering presence somewhere to their right, over a strip of lawn that now burst with a riot of colours and smells.

In a nod to the vitality of summer, the usually soulless lawns of the Banpo Hangang River Park had been turned into flowerbeds. The flowers were illuminated in patches by tall municipal streetlamps and temporary nightlights hidden within the decorative shrubbery; their scent sadly overwhelmed by the general stench of urbanity, but occasionally would waft triumphant, carried by some far-reaching seabreeze moving up the Han.

Younghyun noticed very little of any of this, having been half-distracted with thoughts about how it had been several rental cycles and Wonpil still hadn't found a new place; wanting Wonpil to live with him; and how exactly to broach the topic. His ears caught up to his brain at the same time Wonpil poked him.

"Ah, yeah?"

"Pay attention to me, hyung," Wonpil sulked jokingly.

"Sorry, sorry." Younghyun swung their joined hands apologetically. "What is it?"

"The flowers — it's been almost a year. Since, you know."

"Ah." Younghyun glanced around. The flower beds here were a pale imitation of those of the Coex Flower Field, even in the hysteria-tinged memory he had of the place. "It has, huh."

Those weeks, months, years of blind, uninterrogated stumbling towards an undefined _something better_ had by now receded into the fog of memory; even that fuzzy conviction that had had him turning the helicopter towards Jamsil. All of it, faded against the vibrance his life had taken on since that literal turning point, blunted against the sharp clarity of refound purpose.

Wonpil snorted. "You can't possibly have forgotten _getting suspended_."

"I mean..." Younghyun looked down at their hands, and then up at Wonpil. "It worked out in the end. Worth it. No regrets."

Wonpil blinked rapidly, before a shy little smile stole over his face and he ducked his head. _Don't you dare make this about me_ , he'd said months ago. At the time, Younghyun had only been beginning to feel his way back to his vocational lodestar, had been incoherent about it in defence, but what he had said then he knew to be marrow-deep truth now.

"I still mean it," Younghyun said. "You know, what I said to you that night. I wouldn't have been happy stuck in the studio."

"I know," said Wonpil softly, squeezing their hands. "I'm so glad for you, hyung."

Younghyun cleared his throat. "And in any case, flowers just make me think of that flowering monstrosity they made you wear for that fucking recruitment ad."

Kindly following his lead, Wonpil raised his eyebrows, the ghost of a smirk dimpling his cheek. "A _monstrosity_ , was it?"

"You were utterly distracting."

"I know." Wonpil gave him that beloved cheeky smile, wide and cheerful, eyes creasing. "You weren't subtle at all, hyung."

Younghyun untangled their hands to tuck Wonpil in close with an arm. When Wonpil didn't wriggle away or protest, he curled his other arm around his waist, bringing them to a stop. "Not to be the person who _circles back around_ , but ... my decision back then was about me, but if by happy coincidence I could give you a chance to be happy too ... I don't regret that either. I'm happy when you're happy."

Fondly amused, Younghyun watched as the flush stole over Wonpil's cheeks and ruddied his ears, and then Wonpil was burying a shriek in his shoulder and hitting him in the side.

"You can't just say things like that, hyung," Wonpil complained. "Especially not in _public_."

"Why?" Younghyun stroked at one rosy ear. "It's not like I'm talking dirty to you."

Wonpil counterproductively bit his collarbone. " _Definitely_ don't do that."

"What, ever?"

Sighing deeply, Wonpil unburied himself, face still a little pink. "You're awful."

Younghyun grinned. "I can be, if you want me to be."

Hitting him with a reproving look, Wonpil tilted his head towards the river. Having evidently made the unilateral decision that _this_ line of conversation was over, he said, "Mmm. This would be such a nice view to wake up to."

"What, my face?" Younghyun half-jokingly asked.

Wonpil snorted and rolled his eyes, pushing Younghyun's face away. "No, the river."

Unable to help himself, Younghyun said, "You can sort of see part of the river from my bedroom window."

The thoughtful pause that unfolded almost made Younghyun break into cold sweat, except for Wonpil staying within the circle of his arms. His face was minutely flashing through different emotions, before it stilled.

"You can, can't you?" Wonpil mused.

Younghyun's pulse started pounding in his ears. "And ... and from the corner of the living room too."

The tiniest smile twitched the corners of Wonpil's lips up. "Yeah?"

Nodding earnestly, Younghyun echoed him.

"Okay." Wonpil slid his arms around Younghyun's neck, pulled himself closer. "That sounds nice. But I have conditions, if we're going to do this."

Sure that he was smiling stupidly and unable to help himself, Younghyun asked, "What are they?" He couldn't believe this was it; that Wonpil had so neatly sidestepped the knot that Younghyun had woven for himself, and cut straight to the heart of things — except that he could, of course. This was Wonpil.

"First," he said in his serious anchor voice, "you have to promise to wake me up if the snoring gets too annoying —"

"What snoring?" Younghyun asked, confused. "You don't snore? Do you?"

Wonpil gaped at him a bit and shook his head, lips shaping around silent words.

"Wait, do you mean your little wheezes?"

Wonpil's eyebrows furrowed, then he nodded while making a questioning noise.

"Wonpilie!" Younghyun laughed. "Trust me, I'm not _annoyed_ , and anyway I sleep too deeply."

He got more slow blinks, before Wonpil brightened. "That's true. Okay. Then ... You have to be okay with me having Jinyoungie over sometimes, and —"

"Didn't you already have him over?" asked Younghyun. He was summarily dismissed by an insouciant flip of Wonpil's delicate wrist.

Wonpil continued, "And I want shelf space for my figurine collection. And my fragrances. And my candles."

"Sure," said Younghyun, who honestly didn't own very much at all.

" _And_ you have to be okay with the fact that I shed clothes everywhere."

"Not a problem."

Cheek dimpling with mischief, Wonpil rambled on, "And I want breakfast in bed every Sunday — and oh, you have a TV! We can get a game console! And I've always wanted potted plants, and my parents have been bugging me to move my books out of my old bedroom, and ... oh, but I'll miss my pyeongsang...could we possibly —"

"Yah," Younghyun said as reprovingly as he could. "The place isn't that big. Please keep your demands within the realm of physics."

Wonpil laughed and then turned unexpectedly serious, surveying him with a long thoughtful look.

"Hyung," he said in that soft, taffy way he usually only employed in private. "You really can't say no to people you love, can you?"

Younghyun looked back at Wonpil: the deep laugh lines that folded his cheeks when his eyes curved in a smile; the dear round tip of his nose; the expectant set to his mouth. The river lapped against its wide banks beyond the trees, under the sound of skateboards against concrete and teenagers laugh-shouting in the distance.

For so long, Younghyun had been treading water. He'd found his harbour in no small part thanks to this man; the past year had been restorative and filled with hitherto unimagined wells of joy. There had, however, lingered a faint sense of unease, of something being unfinished. That feeling was settling in his abdomen at last, as he finally came ashore.

Raised a hand to press his palm against the sharp curve of Wonpil's jaw, late night stubble scratching against his skin, Younghyun smiled and leaned down. Wonpil met him halfway, as he could always be trusted to. The lingering taste of the wine they'd shared at the boulangerie earlier was still heady in Wonpil's mouth.

Drawing back after a long, sweet interlude, Younghyun whispered, "No, Wonpil-ah, I suppose can't."

\---

**Instagram | @notthatgang • Follow**

<macarons nestled in a sleek white box, tagged @k.wonpil>

 **notthatgang** Not bad, macarons oppa. Level up. #sadaharuaoki #macarons

—

 **g.eunsss** omg what HOW do you know announcer kim???

**notthatgang** @g.eunsss you watch the news?!

**g.eunsss** @notthatgang what's that supposed to mean...

 **spicysoup.yang** his account is private ㅠ_______ㅠ

 **yhkang** yah, brat, I paid for that too!!!

\---

**OMAKE**

_DRAMATIS PERSONAE_

YOUNGHYUN, here because his baby cousin is graduating

WONPIL, invited as YOUNGHYUN'S's hapless plus one/moral support

HEAD REPORTER KIM and HEAD ANNOUNCER KIM, wearing the same thing as usual

UNCLE KANG, there because it is his daughter's graduation

PD OH, in attendance for reasons unknown

PPAL-GANG, the graduating baby cousin

—

_Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, at PPAL-GANG's high school graduation, YOUNGHYUN is having flashbacks to his desperate escape, now four months past, from the chaotic Kang family (Korean branch) Chuseok dinner. He was the second of his cousins to have decamped, happily with a real reason — to attend WONPIL's family dinner._

WONPIL: Hyung, are you okay? You look ... pale.

YOUNGHYUN: Yes. Just reliving every single familial farce that I've already lived through.

WONPIL: ( _takes his hand_ ) Can I help?

YOUNGHYUN: No. Well, Maybe. ( _holds their joined hands up, speaking into them_ ) This is Reporter Kang Younghyun, reporting to you live from — High School. The atmosphere is lively, almost festival like, but what lies underneath is ... ( _dramatic pause_ )... a complex web of sociopolitical relations _._ We focus today on the Kang family ... _(continues on in this vein for a while_ )

WONPIL: ( _holding in laughter_ ) Hyung, you're terrible.

_Rustling of leaves as YOUNGHYUN and WONPIL are discovered in their hiding place behind a potted plant._

HEAD REPORTER KIM: ( _stridently_ ) THIS IS A SCHOOL! STOP CANOODLING!

HEAD ANNOUNCER KIM: ( _rolls her eyes, extravagantly_ )

PPAL-GANG _enters from the gallery door_.

PPAL-GANG: Oh my god you're all so EMBARRASSING

YOUNGHYUN: We'll show up for your university graduation too, Ppang-yah Ppang-yah, don't worry.

PPAL-GANG: I hate you! Stop calling me that!

WONPIL: I don't know, it's cute.

PPAL-GANG _shoots a betrayed look around her elders._

FELLOW GRADUATE #1: Daebak, isn't that the guy who was on the show with Stray Kids' Bang Chan.

YOUNGHYUN: All of my reporting escapades .... nothing in the face of out-eating an idol two years ago.

WONPIL: Well, but now we get discounts whenever we go there to eat, hyung. It's nice to eat meat somewhere other than the place near work.

YOUNGHYUN: ...Okay

THE AUNTS KIM: ( _roll their eyes extravagantly_ )

—

_Later, at celebratory dinner (coincidentally at one of the BBQ joints that Younghyun now gets an SBS Special Food Correspondent discount from)_ :

WONPIL: ( _in an undertone_ ) Wow, your uncle really had a type, didn't he?

YOUNGHYUN: Yes, the type that gets tired of him.

WONPIL: I'm sure they had their reasons ...

YOUNGHYUN: Oh, undoubtedly. And to be fair, my aunts really have a type too ( _looks from UNCLE KANG to PD Oh_ , _who is still there for reasons unknown_ )

WONPIL: ( _teasingly_ ) Ah, but the question is: do _I_ have a type?

YOUNGHYUN _twitches._

**THE END.**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> this fic quite honestly would not exist without bysine, with their original as well as the endless encouragement and comments. you're the oriental berry to my stress, friendo. 
> 
> ppal-gang is also possibly my favourite OC now. 
> 
> if you enjoyed this, please leave a comment, hit that kudos button, and [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1348851204013621249?s=20)/tell a friend about it. thank you!


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